Egg-Stravaganza!

Lame title, I know. But it is that time of year! How to boil an egg. It seems that I don't boil too many eggs in my regular life because every time that I do, I have to look up how. I don't want green yolks, I don't want gooey middles. Easter is around the corner and I want nice, fresh eggs to dye, then turn in to my favorite egg treat: deviled eggs. More on that later!

So... how to boil an egg. Or, in some cases, how NOT to boil an egg. First, an egg is not pasta. You don't want to bring the water to a rolling boil and then drop those delicate suckers in there. To do this is hard boiled egg sabotage, but it's an easy mistake to make.

Start with an empty pan. Make sure the pan is large enough for the eggs to form a single layer. Add cold water to the pan until the water comes to about an inch above the eggs. Carefully carry this to your stove. (Unless you have one of those neat pasta arm contraptions. In which case, I am jealous.) Once on the stove turn the heat to medium high. It's gonna take awhile, so maybe grab a book... Ok, it won't take that long, but to give you an idea, I am writing this blog while I wait for the water to come to the rolling boil.

Anyway, so after a bit you'll start to notice little streams of tiny bubbles rising from the eggs. Not in a way that would suggest that the boiling has started, but just the tiny little strands of bubbles. Why? I didn't know either, so I looked it up. Every egg has a small air bubble in it for the development of the chick in a fertilized egg. As the air inside the shell expands from the heat, it escapes from microscopic holes in the shell. The holes are big enough to let air out, but not big enough to let the liquid inside out or the water outside in. So, if you are like me, stop worrying, your eggs aren't getting all watery in there.

As the water itself starts to bubble, toss in some salt and allow it to continue heating until it comes to a rolling boil. NOT a crazy rolling boil though. You don't want those eggs to go bouncing all around in there. Unless you want firework shaped eggs. Cool science lesson, not so cool for egg dying.

As soon as it comes to that rolling boil, cover it and turn off the heat. Grab an egg-timer (HA!) or just keep track. This process of doing nothing while the eggs cook takes about 12-13 minutes. Enjoy a cup of coffee.

When the time is up, add the eggs to cold (or even icy) water to stop the cooking process. And stop the greenification of the yolk. If you are going to peel right away, it's easiest to do so under cold running water. If you are dying, like us, remove them from their ice bath and toss it into the fridge until ready. I decided to boil these while little one was at school, the dying (and pictures) come tonight. Stay tuned!

Wandering

This weekend we wandered down to my dad's house. It was nice! Little One loves her Pop Pop, Tante and Aunt Caitie. It has lead to an interesting situation, indeed! My sister and her fiance have moved out of the home that we grew up in. This leaves my dad home alone in a three bedroom home. It's about an hour and a half drive to and from work every day for my dad. What's interesting about that, you ask? He's thinking of moving... but all of us have a pretty big sentimental connection to this house. We had a brain cloud moment and thought "Well, what if we took over the lease?" We're not 100% on everything yet, but we're really excited for if this works out! I loved my house growing up, I loved my school, I loved the town and the area. It's closer to Bear's brother and sister-in-law, closer to my family and at the same time we are NOT far from Bear's mom and dad.
My brother is stationed abroad with the US Navy right now, and when he comes home he will still be able to come home to his room, his surroundings. It has an office area, which is amazing since we both work from home.
There are so many amazing things about this possibility. We're crossing fingers, toes and eyes, hoping that the landlord is ok with it. We've lived in that home for 15+ years, so I don't know why he wouldn't want to just take us on instead of having to worry about finding a new, trustworthy, long term tenant.

Meatloaf Recipe

I have been CRAVING meatloaf. So tonight, little One and I hit the kitchen to make the best meatloaf I have ever made. Here's the recipe if you want to give it a shot:

5-sh white mushrooms, sliced (to get little One involved I had her break up the sliced mushrooms into chunks. If you are going solo dice the mushrooms)
1 small diced onion
1 box of stuffing mix (we used cornbread)
2 eggs
about a pound of ground beef.

Combine all of this and form in a pan. Bake for about 25 minutes at 425*. I then topped it with ketchup turned it down to 350* and baked it again for 10 minutes. I made boxed scalloped potatoes topped with broccoli as a side/veggie.

What I love about this is that it's really easy. It's 10-15 minutes prep time depending on your little one's participation. You then toss everything in the oven for about a half an hour and it's done! You don't have to touch it, which means you can have some fun time together instead of standing over the pot while everyone else hangs out in the living room!

Fingerpainting Update!

Homemade finger paint was a success!
Okay, so my original thought that the texture was a little too thick, was confirmed. Next time I will just boil it for a little less time. That being said it wasn't unsuccessful by any means. She loved it! A bonus to the thickness is that she could pick it up and smear it around in globs. Little one approved! I figure I will give each of these projects a grade:

Easiness: 9 out of 10. It may be tricky to figure out how to get it glob free and to get the right texture. Overall though, it's really straightforward and you'll get better at it in time.
Fun: 10 out of 10! There are so many things you can do with this. We just did paper, but I could see decorating shoe boxes for gifts, canvases for hanging art or boxes for play houses.
Clean up: 9 out 10. Overall this came off very easily from the kitchen table, Little One's hands and clothing. If you over do it on the food coloring, it's not going to be as easy and if you accidentally let it sit on your hands it will stain.

My SO has asked that Little One's face be omitted from the blog since I'll be posting it to Pinterest. I'll do my best. :)

Wanderlust

Wanderlust: strong longing for or impulse toward wandering
www.merrium-webster.com

Wanderlust, in its purest form is the desire to travel. But I also think it is the desire to escape. Escape the normalcy of the Monday through Friday schedule. With that in mind, I begin my journey into Wanderlust and will document the weekend journeys, adventures and new experiences. Even if I don't even have to leave my kitchen. The first adventure into the unknown is with a new experience. I am going to make handmade finger paint this afternoon. Little One just went to bed for a nap. She's excited to wake up to a wide world of color. Here's the recipe from fun-stuff-to-do.com:

Basic Heated Fingerpaint

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 2 tablespoons food colouring

Directions:

Mix 1 cup of flour and 2 tablespoons of salt

Add the cold water and stir until there are no lumps

Add the hot water and bring to a boil while stirring

Remove from heat once thickened

Continue to whisk until all lumps are gone

Add food colouring and stir well

Pour into desired containers

Allow time to cool down or refrigerate

Shake before use and refrigerate after use

Sounds easy, right? It is! I realized about half way through that it's just like making a gravy, a thick gravy, but a gravy nonetheless.


I gathered all of the ingredients on the counter since I wasn't sure how quickly it would all come together. I recommend this because it's a pretty quick process. In the medium pan I whisked the flour and salt together, in the small pan I added the 1 1/2 cups of water and put it on the stove on high to heat it up for the third step. I put the cold water in a cup so that I could add it slowly to the flour mixture. With everything in place, I was ready to start.


If you have never made a roux for gravy, this part might be tricky. Don't go adding all of the water at once. This would make for lumpy paint (and gravy). Add a little at a time, forming a paste. As you go, you can add a little more but be sure to whisk the entire time. Once I had the milky consistency you see above, the other water was hot and ready to add. Again, add the hot water slowly. I think this is called tempering in the cooking world. You do this so that the hot water doesn't "cook" the flour mixture before it is incorporated. Once that was added, I turned the burner on med-high and kept whisking. This is to prevent the bottom layer from cooking and making the mixture all lumpy.


The recipe doesn't give times and I think that is because you can make this paint whatever texture you want. The longer you heat the mixture, the thicker it will be. I may have over done mine, making it very thick.


In any event, now you are ready to add your food coloring. The recipe calls for one BIG batch of one color. Unless you have a kindergarten class you are prepping for, I would suggest splitting it and making a variety of colors. If I had prepped better, I would have gotten small mason jars, Tupperware or something like that. But I didn't so I added about a tablespoon to each of the divots in a container for deviled eggs. A Muffin tin would have also worked.


My daughter's only request was that there be pink and black. So I gave her a rainbow, knowing at some point all of those colors are going to mix and she is going to make her own black paint. I used a four pack of neon food colors that I had bought for a tye-dye cupcake recipe on her birthday. They served very nicely, but any colors will work.


I added one drop of each to the rows of white goop and stirred it in with wooden barbeque skewers. In the last row I added an extra drop and made random color combinations.

And there you have it. I had a lot of the original mixture left over, so I put it in a Tupperware and will probably do this again next weekend. Little One is still napping so I put the mixture in the fridge to cool. Once we have our art projects done, I will post an update. I'm looking forward to it!